Nature nurture

• What is the nature nurture debate?

  The nature nurture debate is concerned with weather nature (hereditary genes) or nurture (the environment) determines behaviour.
• Who argues for nature in the nature nurture debate?

  Natavists like Renee Descartes (1596-1650)
• What is the nature perspective of the nature nurture debate?

  all characteristics are predetermined/innate.
• What are the supporting arguments for nature?

  The main evidence for this perspective is discovery of the NaChR nicotine receptor in the brain that is responsible for nicotine addiction as well as genetic inheritance being able to help identify atypical chromosome patterns such as Klinefelters syndrome. These behaviours and characteristics show a clear biological basis suggesting that nature is the superior factor.
• What are the opposing arguments for nature?

  However using a purely nature-based approach can result in a prejudiced and extremely deterministic assumptions that cause controversy through stereotypes such as linking ethnicity to intelligence, especially when monozygotic twin studies have not shown 100% concordance implying nature cannot account for all behaviour.
• Who argues for nurture in the nature nurture debate?

  empricists like John Locke (1632-1704)
• What is the nurture perspective of the nature nurture debate?

  the mind is a blank slate which is shaped by the environment.
• What are the supporting arguments for nurture?

  This is evidenced by the behaviourist two process model which states that behaviours are learnt via classical conditioning and reinforced through operant conditioning.
• What are the opposing arguments for nurture?

  however it cannot account for individual differences between children raised in the same family environment or the high (albeit not 100) concordance rates between monozygotic twins in studies e.g. Nan et al (2012) who found a 61-80% concordance rate for obesity in a study of 8000 monozygotic twins.
• Who argues for a middle way path between the nature nurture debate?

  interactionsists like Donald Hebb.
• What is the perspective of the middle way path between nature and nurture.

  It is impossible to separate the two.
• What is the supporting evidence for the middle way path between nature and nurture?

  This is supported by the diathesis stress model that suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability but is only presented when paired with a stressor, and epigenetics that are a result of interacting with the environment and consequently altering genetic activity and gene expression. Both of these support the concept that nurture has an effect on nature but both are essential affecting factors of behaviour. Studies to support this include Maguire et als London taxi research who found that London taxi drivers had a larger grey matter volume in the mid-posterior hippocampus, an area of the brain associated with spatial awareness (skills needed for taxi drivers when they are learning and completing 'The Knowledge' exam). Moreover, there was a positive correlation between increasingly pronounced changes and an increasing length of time that individuals had been taxi drivers. Another piece of research was done by Kagen (1984) who claimed that the reasoning b